Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: redmenace on October 26, 2005, 02:52:04 am
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I have never understood how or why this concept should be enforced. How can anyone claim that a math test is racist or stacked against someone. :confused:
If no one knows what I am refering to there is an attached PDF.
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huh?
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:lol:
have you ever heard of a thing called the Civil Rights Act? The courts have stated that if hiring process of a firm demonstrate "racially disproportionate results" such as test batteries that they are violating the Civil Rights Act and thus discrimination.
I am sorry I find that a little retarded.
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The problem is that they're trying to fix the result rather than the cause.
Like changing the answer of a math problem, rather than trying to make sure you did the problem right.
Of coruse, then people bring in the defense of 'well, they may not have had as many opportunities'.
Personally I call BS, and say, if they don't have as many opportunities to learn, why the **** are they attacking jobs? Why not fund scolarships targetted at people lacking opportunities?
Of course, oftentimes people take the easy path and just commission racist scolarships.
In essence, it's the assumption that if one thing is bad (discrimination against ethnic groups) then the opposite is good (discrimination for ethnic groups)
Edit: Classic example...if one guy ever says on the internet that he likes large boobs, and there are girls about, all the other guys immediately take pains to assure the women that, no, they prefer small boobs. :p
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I remember Tiara commenting a long time ago about racial issues here in the US. In retrospect she is partially right. But the greater problem isn't so much race as a breakdown of class and geographical location. However, these civil right advocates that yell and scream discrimination, are merely attacking a symptom of a greater problem. They seem to want to settle for a seamingly second best thing. I don't always agree with Bill Cosby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby#Political_views), but often I think he hits the nail on the head with his criticisms of the black community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettosburg_Address) and the need to better them selves.
That said, make no mistake, this is America's Problem. We created this problem. Our forefathers through their use of slavery brought us where we are today. Unfortunatly, that is part of their legacy.
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Question is, was it any better than the culture of human sacrifice it displaced...
/has recently read Pastwatch
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Ah, the old catch-22. On the one hand, you have inherent possibility of bias in any human-derived system (including the test itself), on the other hand you have the problem when assuming bias creates an inverse bias. I always felt positive discrimination (what's the exact term again? 'Affirmative action'?) is still discrimination, and ultimately it'll just act to reinforce existing bias and paranoia; if some guy gets denied uni/work because an ethnic minority candidate is picked for no reason beyond quotas, it's not going to make that rejected person feel anything but less tolerant.
Although I'd say it's also grossly unfair when/if you have a situation that, for example, gives preference to people from better schools simply because of that schooling. To me that's definite geographical bias, and a person who gets a B+ at an underfunded public/state school definately should be given the same merit as someone with an A at a private school with far better resources to learn from.
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But a person that is from a private school is going to have greater intelligence as a result of the resources and such. Why shouldn't that persons not be given greater weight in hiring? Intelligence has a moderate correlation to job performance. Why shouldn't a company use intelligence or a cognative ability exam? Their goal is to hire the best workers.
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Yes, I'm a big non-fan of positive discrimination, the important word is discrimination, it doesn't matter what prosthetics you tag onto it.
Having seen adverts for 'Black Women only Social Clubs', or 'Free computer graphics training for Asians aged 16-21 only', while I understand that in some cases people that have just emigrated here require support etc to settle in, I don't see this as being any worse than had I seen an ad for 'White men only social club', which would have been assured a closing under the equal ops act.
Aptitude tests are commonplace in the UK, I don't really consider them discriminatory as such, mostly they consist of extremely basic, easy questions, and maybe the odd one or two related to the kind of job you are doing. I've personally never found them challenging, and if you're going for a job in finance and can't even answer 'What's 60 divided by 3', then the company really ought to know about it, after all it's their money they are spending.
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The thing is that laws here is the united states anti descrimination laws are screwy as well. They allow for a very thin line for Human Resource Professionals to walk.
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*throws a firebrand into the mix*
It's widely recognized in medicine that different races have different inherent susceptibilities to certain diseases. Why should it be such a big deal if different races have different inherent academic or physical strengths? Look at blacks in basketball or Asians in math for example.
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Originally posted by redmenace
But a person that is from a private school is going to have greater intelligence as a result of the resources and such. Why shouldn't that persons not be given greater weight in hiring? Intelligence has a moderate correlation to job performance. Why shouldn't a company use intelligence or a cognative ability exam? Their goal is to hire the best workers.
The problem is that it's easier to learn with more resources at your fingertips; anyone with 3 tutors, the top textbooks and 9 non-working hours a day to study is going to have a natural advantage which has nothing to do with actual intelligence/cognitive ability.
That's a big exaggeration, of course, but I think you have to factor in the sheer weight and effort of work required from a disadvantaged background where you have to do a lot of that stuff by yourself. This is not so much aimed at the whole minority issue, though, more at the types of companies who only take on applicants from 'the top 10 universities' or somesuch, which really pisses me off.
Yes, there is the ole' IQ test and soforth, but I'm not sure anyone has achieved a test which can be said to be 100% relevant to a particular job, or 100% reliable.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
The problem is that it's easier to learn with more resources at your fingertips; anyone with 3 tutors, the top textbooks and 9 non-working hours a day to study is going to have a natural advantage which has nothing to do with actual intelligence/cognitive ability.
That's a big exaggeration, of course, but I think you have to factor in the sheer weight and effort of work required from a disadvantaged background where you have to do a lot of that stuff by yourself. This is not so much aimed at the whole minority issue, though, more at the types of companies who only take on applicants from 'the top 10 universities' or somesuch, which really pisses me off.
Yes, there is the ole' IQ test and soforth, but I'm not sure anyone has achieved a test which can be said to be 100% relevant to a particular job, or 100% reliable.
Actually, how you are nurtured as a child has alot to do with intelligence/cognitive ability. A person might have a gift, but unless that gift is nurtured and encouraged, it will not blossum.
So what, those companies that do hire the creme of the crop also pay the premium for students from the top 10 universities. It is their prerogative. If I had a choice between a student from GMU and a student from Harvard, all else being the same, I would choose Harvard. What person wouldn't?
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Originally posted by redmenace
Actually, how you are nurtured as a child has alot to do with intelligence/cognitive ability. A person might have a gift, but unless that gift is nurtured and encouraged, it will not blossum.
So what, those companies that do hire the creme of the crop also pay the premium for students from the top 10 universities. It is their prerogative. If I had a choice between a student from GMU and a student from Harvard, all else being the same, I would choose Harvard. What person wouldn't?
Actually, I wouldn't; I'd pick on the person, not where they spent 4 years sitting on their arse.
Certainly would not exclude people on the basis of their university; I mean, that's not even sensible! People pick universities for more reasons than reputation; such as location and cost in particular. It'll be an even more stupid policy once top-up fees are introduced in England, of course, and only the most well-off rather than the most intelligent will be equipped to got to this top 10 (well, the english ones). Let alone the unfairness of it, it's bad business practice.
EDIT; I'd say that any person is capable of 'blossoming' at any point in their life. It took me a good few years to figure what I was doing, after all. Plus the teachers you have make a difference; I remember jumping from the 3rd worst to the 3rd best (roughly) maths group between 2 years for no reason beyond different teachers.
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What really annoys me is when I get a test and in the corner next to the bubble to apply for National Merit it says, "fill in this bubble if you are African American and wish to apply for the National Achievement Award."
WTH!
It really pisses me off that racism is still so blatantly present. Just, it's sorta backwards this time.
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As is always the case, the root problem here is economics. A large number of the nation's most economically depressed areas still contain a large fraction of the nation's racial minorites. Thus, minorites such as blacks and Hispanics are statistically disadvantaged by substandard school systems. In addition, the most intelligent and determined among these poor populations are still faced with the prohibitive cost of even state-run secondary education.
So I don't think it's usually a matter of discrimination on the part of the employer, but of the fact that socioeconomic conditions allow a smaller percentage of minorites to gain the necessary qualifications. Slapping the employers with race quotas isn't going to change a thing about the poor neighborhoods from which these lopsided statistics originate.
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Personally, if I were hiring someone, I'd only judge them on their ability to do the ****ing job. Unfortunately Western governments have too much time and money on their hands and would prefer to impose ridiculous 'requests' upon all businesses.
OK, so you've got one person who can't do the job and one person who can. The choice would be obvious to anyone with more than half a braincell (an asset that politicians are, almost by definition, lacking), but since the incapable one is, by random chance, black and/or a woman, they should be favoured.
And the public wonders why nothing can ever be done properly.
Who's in favour of buying a sniper rifle and picking off politicians one by one? Personally, I'm in favour of buying a machine gun and solving the problem en masse.
:p
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Just chuck a condom full of flour at them; that'll get them running for cover.
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Has to be purple, don't forget...
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Damn, I'll buy a few multipacks, there might be a purple condom in there..... ;)
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I used a purple one like... yesterday? Or two days ago? I can't remember... they pass them out at the planned parenthood office on campus. :nervous:
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Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Why not fund scolarships targetted at people lacking opportunities?
because, while I was at the Univ of Oklahoma, and I understand this is happening all over the country, white students are suing claiming reverse discrimination. they win their cases, and the scholarship programs are shut down. We can't win in this country.
Originally posted by Goober5000
Why should it be such a big deal if different races have different inherent academic or physical strengths? Look at blacks in basketball or Asians in math for example.
it shouldn't. Some of it is cultural, some not. Some cultures, Asians and some in the Caribbean for example, place more emphasis on education, making it more important than anything else growing up. SO of course it's going to look like your smarter. That being said, if you breed slaves to be bigger and stronger, they WILL get bigger and stronger. If it was a racial thing, all countries with significant black populations would dominate in the Olympics. But thats not whats happening.
DeepBlue, I've seen alot of the stuff youve written and I think you just have a personal problem with black people. Get over it.
FordPrefect, I think the best way to fix the problem with school funding is to change the way its funded. Right now schools are locally funded out of property taxes, so richer areas are going to have better funded and better schools. If we make funding more uniform across the state or county level, we wouldnt have half the problems we have now with school inequities
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Originally posted by NegspectahDek
because, while I was at the Univ of Oklahoma, and I understand this is happening all over the country, white students are suing claiming reverse discrimination. they win their cases, and the scholarship programs are shut down. We can't win in this country.
We can't win? When is it ever about winning? Its about progress and fixing a grave mistake. Secondly, if you demand anti-discrimination laws, the door swings both ways. You must have heard of the 14th admendment(equal protection IIRC). Now, if these programs were designed to help lower class students regaurdless of race, then there is an issue.
it shouldn't. Some of it is cultural, some not. Some cultures, Asians and some in the Caribbean for example, place more emphasis on education, making it more important than anything else growing up. SO of course it's going to look like your smarter. That being said, if you breed slaves to be bigger and stronger, they WILL get bigger and stronger. If it was a racial thing, all countries with significant black populations would dominate in the Olympics. But thats not whats happening.
I actually agree with you for the most part.
DeepBlue, I've seen alot of the stuff youve written and I think you just have a personal problem with black people. Get over it.
Umm yeah, unless you can walk a mile in his shoes, don't go accusing others of borderline racism. Its not a nice thing to do.
FordPrefect, I think the best way to fix the problem with school funding is to change the way its funded. Right now schools are locally funded out of property taxes, so richer areas are going to have better funded and better schools. If we make funding more uniform across the state or county level, we wouldnt have half the problems we have now with school inequities
That doesn't really fix the problem. You are basically redistributing resources. In the end all school will suck. We will just suck uniformally. Can you show me some actual numbers to back up what you are saying?
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If I had a company, it would comply fully with all Equal Opportunity laws. All my Chinese and Indian employies would be in the IT department, all the Whites would be in Management, all the blacks would be Custodial Staff, the rednecks would be in Shipping, Swiss and French employies would be in Design department, Filipinos would staff my sweatshops and I would have a fat, bald shirtless guy to beat the drums.
DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN
Back to work, scum!
DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN
That was a completely irrelevant post. It was just an excuse to amuse myself with various racial sterotypes. I'm sorry.
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Damnit redmenace, that's impossible to quote! :p
The whole redistributing-resources thing. That's actually a means to an end; if schools suck uniformly and rich people have to send their kids to them, then there's that much more pressure to actually fix things. I came up in a school that had basically no operating budget, and there are definitely a lot of resources that we simply didn't have access to. Meanwhile, the high school that served the county's country club always operated with a huge budget, and offered a ton of classes that I would not only have liked to take had there been resources to teach them at my school, but which also would have legitimately helped me in college. The disparity in resources isn't a rare or a minor thing, by any means, and it's definitely a big part of the problem.
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Umm all the rich people will do is send their kids to private schools.
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Redmenace has it in one. As for the whole minority-only scholarships, many don't go to lower income students. I have a friend who has a Hispanic scholarship, and he's upper middle class.
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Originally posted by redmenace
Originally posted by NegspectahDek
because, while I was at the Univ of Oklahoma, and I understand this is happening all over the country, white students are suing claiming reverse discrimination. they win their cases, and the scholarship programs are shut down. We can't win in this country.
We can't win? When is it ever about winning? Its about progress and fixing a grave mistake. Secondly, if you demand anti-discrimination laws, the door swings both ways. You must have heard of the 14th admendment(equal protection IIRC). Now, if these programs were designed to help lower class students regaurdless of race, then there is an issue.
its been about winning ever since someone decided that they had the right to rape, pillage, colonize, mass murder, enslave, destroy ad nauseum on their way to controlling the world. I didn't make the rules, but I still have to play by them.
DeepBlue, I've seen alot of the stuff youve written and I think you just have a personal problem with black people. Get over it.
Umm yeah, unless you can walk a mile in his shoes, don't go accusing others of borderline racism. Its not a nice thing to do.
boderline? maybe I wasn't clear enough
FordPrefect, I think the best way to fix the problem with school funding is to change the way its funded. Right now schools are locally funded out of property taxes, so richer areas are going to have better funded and better schools. If we make funding more uniform across the state or county level, we wouldnt have half the problems we have now with school inequities
That doesn't really fix the problem. You are basically redistributing resources. In the end all school will suck. We will just suck uniformally. Can you show me some actual numbers to back up what you are saying?
people talk about equal chance this equal chance that. when something comes along that would equalize things, they sidestep. Some schools would get better funding, some worse. Both groups head towards a mean. Not perfect. But more equal.
(http://www.plu.edu/~poverty/stats/graph1.jpg)
Poverty Study (http://www.plu.edu/~poverty/stats/home.html)
I tihnk we can agree that people naturally segregate their communities by race in this country. Blacks are 12% of the pop, so 36 million. Whites are about 75% i think so 225 million. about one fifth of all blacks and one tenth of all whites are below the poverty line. Blacks as a race have two strikes against them. Schools are funded by prop taxes.
1) Fully 20% of all blacks have no disposable income to spend n property to get taxed to better fund their schools, and 2) thee are less of us. Less of us and we make less money. Whites on the other hand, have more schools, and more good schools. How any person can oppose giving someone a leg up when the deck is stacked against them is beyond me. But this is America.
(http://tinypic.com/f19smw.jpg)
Whats particularly upsetting to me in the case of the loss of race based scholarships is the fact that most of these guys suing if they needed money, they could go to these programs and ask. I personally knew the head of the program at OU. She turned nobody away that needed help. NO ONE. But you have people suing to take something away from someone else, instead trying to find sometihng for themselves. When that stops, we'll have won. And by won, I mean not losing anymore. Cause this will never be our country.
(http://tinypic.com/f19q4z.jpg)
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So you post a photoshopped image to back your argument?
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yup. it would have no relevance if it wasn't funny. why is it funny? Because we're only 40 years removed from firemen hosing us down. The kind of thinking and social institututions that goes into a government doing that to its "citizens" doesn't just go away in a generation, no matter how much people wish it to be so.
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Originally posted by Rictor
If I had a company, it would comply fully with all Equal Opportunity laws. All my Chinese and Indian employies would be in the IT department, all the Whites would be in Management, all the blacks would be Custodial Staff, the rednecks would be in Shipping, Swiss and French employies would be in Design department, Filipinos would staff my sweatshops and I would have a fat, bald shirtless guy to beat the drums.
DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN
Back to work, scum!
DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN
That was a completely irrelevant post. It was just an excuse to amuse myself with various racial sterotypes. I'm sorry.
You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.... Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
Aldous Huxley
That was a completely irrelevant post. I just wanted a place to post it...
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Originally posted by NegspectahDek
yup. it would have no relevance if it wasn't funny. why is it funny? Because we're only 40 years removed from firemen hosing us down. The kind of thinking and social institututions that goes into a government doing that to its "citizens" doesn't just go away in a generation, no matter how much people wish it to be so.
I honestly find it in rather poor taste, and not remotely amusing.
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Originally posted by NegspectahDek
its been about winning ever since someone decided that they had the right to rape, pillage, colonize, mass murder, enslave, destroy ad nauseum on their way to controlling the world. I didn't make the rules, but I still have to play by them.
What?
boderline? maybe I wasn't clear enough
Just wow.
people talk about equal chance this equal chance that. when something comes along that would equalize things, they sidestep. Some schools would get better funding, some worse. Both groups head towards a mean. Not perfect. But more equal.
Uh huh, and like I said. You drag everyone down with you.
I tihnk we can agree that people naturally segregate their communities by race in this country. Blacks are 12% of the pop, so 36 million. Whites are about 75% i think so 225 million. about one fifth of all blacks and one tenth of all whites are below the poverty line. Blacks as a race have two strikes against them. Schools are funded by prop taxes.
1) Fully 20% of all blacks have no disposable income to spend n property to get taxed to better fund their schools, and 2) there are less of us. Less of us and we make less money. Whites on the other hand, have more schools, and more good schools. How any person can oppose giving someone a leg up when the deck is stacked against them is beyond me. But this is America.
Ok, I was asking for budget numbers of schools, not photoshoped rhetoric and 5 year old numbers of poverty statistics that seemingly show a downward trend.
Whats particularly upsetting to me in the case of the loss of race based scholarships is the fact that most of these guys suing if they needed money, they could go to these programs and ask. I personally knew the head of the program at OU. She turned nobody away that needed help. NO ONE. But you have people suing to take something away from someone else, instead trying to find sometihng for themselves. When that stops, we'll have won. And by won, I mean not losing anymore.
Have you ever read the 14th admendment and the civil rights act? It is my constitutional right to have the law equally protect me and you. Being denied a scholarship because of the pigment of my skin is retarded and violates the Civil Rights Act and thus the 14th admendment.
Cause this will never be our country.
You know where the preverbal door is. And before you go around making the grave mistake of calling me racist, my parents adopted 2 inner city children from Philly. They are my flesh and blood. They are Americans. They are my brother and sister. Not Black. Not African American. Not Negro.
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To be honest NegspectahDek, I didn't find Deepblues comment racist, simply a natural human reaction, seeing something that is only being offered to people on a selective basis in which you are not included is bound to cause offence, 'No Blacks, No Irish' being the world famous example. Such treatment will produce the same results regardless of the colour of skin or who it is being commited against.
I'm not knowledgeable enough in the American Education System to talk about the subject at hand really, though I do understand why such things exist, because the Afro American community is hit by a double whammy of lower education funds and pre-concieved stereotypes regarding them.
The swinging of the balance, however needs to be in the centre, at the moment some are saying that whites are being disciminated against, some are saying that blacks are being discriminated against, when in truth, most of the discrimination on both sides is being done by people running round with a little 'model' in their heads of what each race is like based on Stereotypes. That's where such fallacies as 'Blacks are better Athletes' or 'Easterners are good with technology' etc comes from in the first place.
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Originally posted by Grey Wolf
I honestly find it in rather poor taste, and not remotely amusing.
i laugh to keep from crying
@redmenace,
Either you understand that the world isn't kumbaya help your brother, or you don't.
i appreciate you estimation of my photshop skills, but really they are nowhere near that good. You might have missed that link i placed underneath the pic as proof.
So you don't miss it this time (http://www.plu.edu/~poverty/stats/home.html) I don't have budget numbers. Try logic. Schools funded by how much you make. You make less, therefore schools not funded as well. Downward trend or no, the poverty percentage is twice that for blacks as whites. And the trend does show the situation is improving. And just for your information, these studies are based on the Census, which is only taken every ten years, and the last year the numbers are good for is 1999, which shockingly is the last year shown on the graph
Might i suggest reading? The director of the program gave money to everyone that needed it. Black, yellow brown, green, purple, white. Everyone. We had several whites in the Minority Engineering Program at OU. Last time I checked whites were the majority. This is discriminating how? The mere existence of the 14th amendment and civil rights speak more to the need for such protections than the progressiveness of our country.
I understand that this isn't my country. It was stolen fair and square. Just let me thank you for the free boat ride over here and accomodations and I'll be on my way.
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@Flipside,
taken by itself, no its not. but i've notice he/she has something funny to say. I can understand how seeing that would put someone off, but if there wasn't a need for it, it wouldn't be there. At my uni, total enrollment was about 25000 my freshman year. Of that, black enrollment was about 8%, and we had the race based scholarships. In the engineering dept alone, there were 300 black freshman. We lost the scholarships after my 3rd year. In my 5th year (f'in engineering), we had 150 black freshman total for all disciplines. Numbers speak.
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Originally posted by redmenace
Umm all the rich people will do is send their kids to private schools.
So they still pay taxes, and the resources that their kids would have used would be spread among everyone. Money is often the deciding factor in a lot of things (teacher salary, equipment, etc) that determine how good of an education a child can recieve. As a consequense, school vouchers are a *bad idea* because they eliminate the double cost (taxes+tuition) that serves as a deterent to people just sticking their kids in private schools and rather ensures that they keep a vested interest in the quality of public schools.
Funding being so dependent on local income is not the whole problem with American schools, by any means. But the inherent unfairness of the current system isn't helping things.
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Originally posted by NegspectahDek
I understand that this isn't my country. It was stolen fair and square.
That sentence only makes sense if you're a 200 year old Native American.
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Originally posted by NegspectahDek
@redmenace,
Either you understand that the world isn't kumbaya help your brother, or you don't.
i appreciate you estimation of my photshop skills, but really they are nowhere near that good. You might have missed that link i placed underneath the pic as proof.
I know you didn't make that.
So you don't miss it this time (http://www.plu.edu/~poverty/stats/home.html) I don't have budget numbers. Try logic. Schools funded by how much you make. You make less, therefore schools not funded as well. Downward trend or no, the poverty percentage is twice that for blacks as whites. And the trend does show the situation is improving. And just for your information, these studies are based on the Census, which is only taken every ten years, and the last year the numbers are good for is 1999, which shockingly is the last year shown on the graph
I saw the webpage the first time. As per the numbers, too bad, I do wish I could see more recent data. As per logic, you forget there are businesses etc that cities can tax the **** out of and do.
Might i suggest reading? The director of the program gave money to everyone that needed it. Black, yellow brown, green, purple, white. Everyone. We had several whites in the Minority Engineering Program at OU. Last time I checked whites were the majority. This is discriminating how? The mere existence of the 14th amendment and civil rights speak more to the need for such protections than the progressiveness of our country.
I read it the first time. But if they are using the raced based scholarships, meaning written policy, then there is a case for them to be shut down according to the law. It is nice that she helped non minority students. But giving students an automatic leg up because of their race is illegal, ala the University of Michigan case where there was ingrained in the system bias or a preference. But in all fairness I would need to read the court briefs from these cases to make any real judgement.
I understand that this isn't my country. It was stolen fair and square. Just let me thank you for the free boat ride over here and accomodations and I'll be on my way.
You are welcome here. But if you want to insist that you are not american and mearly a hostage, well then leave. As per the atrocities of the south, slavery etc. It was our mistake. We paid for it. And we are still paying for it.
(http://www.abmc.gov/images/headstn.jpg)
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Totally agree with the article. The non-merit based college selection and employment criteria are ridiculous in this day and age. I don't see this changing anytime soon though; around university campuses, the emphasis on "diversity" is only increasing, with more of these racial, ethnic and gender-based scholarships and programs coming up all the time.
But giving students an automatic leg up because of their race is illegal, ala the University of Michigan case where there was ingrained in the system bias or a preference.
It's still done by just about every university unfortunately. Everyone knows that in a college admission process for a math undergrad program for example, a black female applicant will always be preferred to an Asian male one if their other qualifications are similar (and sometimes even if they aren't), which puts people like me at a disadvantage. :p
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I honestly find it in rather poor taste, and not remotely amusing.
Oh come on, that picture's one of my favorites! How is the term "special rights" not hilarious in that context?
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Originally posted by Goober5000
*throws a firebrand into the mix*
It's widely recognized in medicine that different races have different inherent susceptibilities to certain diseases. Why should it be such a big deal if different races have different inherent academic or physical strengths? Look at blacks in basketball or Asians in math for example.
Wow... how the hell can people go around with these sort of ideas still?
First off, "race" is merely a continuum of various biological adapations. Look at people geographically and you'll see just how broad and gradual the changes are over areas. (and this would even be excluding the massive changes and mixing caused by cultural things like wars, empires, etc.)
It is also completely false to mix biological adapations with purely mental constructs. For example in Africa it's more common to have a resistance to malaria due to an increase of sickle-cell anemia in the various populations. It's a recessive trait that can be expressed in heterozygous cases so having full blown anemia is bad, but having some anemia means you're more resistant to malaria.
In SE Asia we see less resistance to alcohol due to boiled water being more commonly used for drinks unlike the massive alcohol use (for clean drinking water and nutritional purposes) seen in the near east. The slow, subtle, removal of non tolerant to alcohol genes in the population through breeding did not occur. We see this definately true with North American populations who seperated from Asia before they developed alcohol/yeast bread. This is a perfect example of the continuum mentioned before.
Just because certain 'traits' can be associated with certain populations doesn't mean that various 'races' are better at basketball, etc. Even if you were going to take the route of a very... very racist stance of "Blacks in America have been selectively bred for sports due to slavery" you'll notice that those selective agents are gone. Even then, all that genes do are make predispositions. If you're working to death you won't express your obesity. So in the end, all of those genes are still around for better or worse. If you keep applying pressure on a small population, and when its released you'll only wind up making gene drift. So no super athletes due to "race."
Now ethnicity, something culture based is a little more solid and valid of an ideal. Looking at the culture in the US versus that of many SE Asian peoples, it's not too hard to see how academics would be taken more seriously and so higher test scores. Of course going into a debate on how China handled scholastics (minus the strange so-called "Cultural Revolution" that wound up later being denounced) versus say Western Europe in the end would wind up becoming quite nasty. However, academic differences between 'races' are related to history, culture, and economic opportunities more than biological traits. (note: "biological traits" as in the idea that there are distinct 'races' with ups and downs, the systematic discrimination based on "race" and the ideas based on it fall under history and culture)
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Originally posted by Goober5000
*throws a firebrand into the mix*
It's widely recognized in medicine that different races have different inherent susceptibilities to certain diseases. Why should it be such a big deal if different races have different inherent academic or physical strengths? Look at blacks in basketball or Asians in math for example.
And yet I have yet to hear about a hospital denying or forcing treatment to fulfill a government-imposed racial quota...
Actually, I'm not even sure how this is relevant. Would it really be better if the government were to say, "Japanese people are much smarter, so 70-85% of all higher-paying jobs should go to them...if this quota is not being met, you will be sued for racist business practices"?
Edit: Or better yet, "Black people are much better at heavy labor, so 60% of all labor-related jobs should involve black Americans"
It is just begging to cause racism.
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DeepBlue, I've seen alot of the stuff youve written and I think you just have a personal problem with black people. Get over it.
And from what I've seen of what you've written, I think you just have a personal problem with white people. Get over it.
its been about winning ever since someone decided that they had the right to rape, pillage, colonize, mass murder, enslave, destroy ad nauseum on their way to controlling the world. I didn't make the rules, but I still have to play by them.
That's history. What's done is done, and unless you have some way to go back and change the way that Europeans expanded across the world (also bringing government and many other benefits to some areas around the world, which you seem to have carefully forgotten to mention), then don't bring up past sins (i.e. several hundred years back) that we have little way to make right.
I agree with Flipside: DeepBlue's reaction was hardly racist, just a surprised reaction. I mean, if there's a program for black Americans for higher education, why not offer a program for other minorities? It also just is a little bit of a shock, as "black-only" benefits are a bit of a shock to Americans (this is not intended to start some racist debate, or that "Americans are xenophobic pigs").
Either you understand that the world isn't kumbaya help your brother, or you don't.
Where did any one of us imply this? We all know that races here in America don't get along: hell, I live in Indiana, and that's only a short distance from the KKK rallies in New Palestine or Neo-Nazi marches in Toledo, Ohio. None of us here are racist, though you seem bent on accusing people here that they are.
First of all, let's face it: we all have some subconscious racism in us. After all, it's because we're human. Somebody might be the most open, accepting person on the planet, but even at the core, simply because of being human, they have some underlying racial separation.
Until a few hundred years ago, whites have always lived with whites on one continent (Europe), blacks have had theirs (Africa), Native Americans had the Western Hemisphere, and Asians had their own regions. When cultures and different colors of skin collide, people get nervous, especially when they've been raised and have grown comfortable with people of their own groups.
We're not racist here, so don't assume that we are.
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Originally posted by Ace
Wow... how the hell can people go around with these sort of ideas still?
Those ideas were taken as self-evident as recently as the first half of the 20th century. While a great deal of that was probably attributable to prejudice, there may have been some truth behind it.
Have a look at this article for example:
http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/atoms/xtra1/herrnstein-murray-tnr.html
It's rather long, but well-reasoned IMHO. Here's an interesting quote:
...The studies that have attempted to measure motivation in such situations generally have found that blacks are at least as motivated as whites. But these are not wholly convincing, for why shouldn't the measures of motivation be just as inaccurate as the measures of cognitive ability are alleged to be? Analysis of internal characteristics of the tests once again offers the best leverage in examining this broad hypothesis. Here, we will offer just one example involving the "digit span" subtest, part of the widely used Wechsler intelligence tests. It has two forms: forward digit span, in which the subject tries to repeat a sequence of numbers in the order read to him, and backward digit span, in which the subject tries to repeat the sequence of numbers backward. The test is simple, uses numbers familiar to everyone and calls on no cultural information besides numbers. The digit span is informative regarding test motivation not just because of the low cultural loading of the items but because the backward form is a far better measure of "g," the psychometrician's shorthand for the general intelligence factor that I.Q. tests try to measure. The reason that the backward form is a better measure of g is that reversing the numbers is mentally more demanding than repeating them in the heard order, as you can determine for yourself by a little self-testing.
The two parts of the subtest have identical content. They occur at the same time during the test. Each subject does both. But in most studies the black-white difference is about twice as great on backward digits as on forward digits. The question then arises: How can lack of motivation (or test willingness) explain the difference in performance on the two parts of the same subtest?...
Why do you think we have stereotypes? They're observed patterns based upon a general impression of the group as a whole. It doesn't mean that the stereotypes will apply to every individual; it just means that the stereotypes are likely to apply to the average member of the group.
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Originally posted by Goober5000
Why do you think we have stereotypes? They're observed patterns based upon a general impression of the group as a whole. It doesn't mean that the stereotypes will apply to every individual; it just means that the stereotypes are likely to apply to the average member of the group.
They're not, though. Thanks to, for example, the mass media. I'd be that any stereotypical view of a scot from, say, the USA, Canada, Hong Kong, etc, would swiftly prove to be completely nonsensical. Even if they have a basis in fact, their continual re-use - and reinforcement - renders most stereotypes out of date and thus completely irrelevant to the modern day world.
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If I even began to run of the various stereotypes people in the UK have about other people in the UK, you'd be amazed how so much misconception could exist in such a tiny area, then take a look at how people from one state view people from another state in the US and suddenly becomes apparent that this happens absolutely everywhere, we form little models of 'them' in our heads and pretend we understand 'them' because we have this model. It doesn't require a skin colour or anything really, all it needs is for one person to be different from another, and since we are all, apparently, unique, that's not a hard scenario to find.
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Originally posted by Flipside
we form little models of 'them' in our heads and pretend we understand 'them' because we have this model.
For my Imperialism class, we had to read a book called "Orientalism" by Edward Said. The whole notion of "Them" and "us", The Occident and the orient, he claims, were simply used for Europe to define itself.
And I think this works for stereotypes as well. We'll make a stereotype of another group of people so that we can say "They" do things that way, and "we" do things this way. It's all about identifying ourselves as something that others are not, or as not being osmething that others are..............
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I read part of that, for a very similar class actually. Thought Said was full of crap myself. He makes some very valid points, but he places far too much blame in what is really just a statement of a human trait.
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Well, yeah. I hated his book too... But I do see that the human trait could be one in the same with Identity verification, like this.
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The other misleading thing about stereotypes is their highly self-perpetuating nature. Simply the knowledge of the existence of a general prejudice often influences people's behavior. There have been studies, for instance, where white students were given a test and told that Asians tend to score better. The result was that the white students actually fulfilled the prediction because that prior "knowledge" caused them to second-guess themselves while taking the test.